NOTES FOR VISITORS: Welcome to the Alaska Outdoors Supersite forums! The contents of our forums are viewable by anyone, and may be read by clicking the forum headings below. To post in the forums, you must register at THIS LINK. To upgrade or change your membership, please login and select Upgrade > Supporting Membership. Your account will now be managed separately from the forum system. Forum login is separate from account management but shares the same username and password.

IMPORTANT: If you cannot log-in, please reset your password using our new 6 character format through THIS LINK and click Forgot Password. An email message with a reset link will be sent to your email address.

Like most things in aviation I would say it depends. Usually rain is not a big deal. However if I am landing in challenging area with lots of obstacles or is extremely short, the rain on windshield (especially when slow) can be a real issue.

Rain down low may mean snow up in the hills. If the landing spot is grass covered it can be way too slick to stop. One of my work sites has a grass strip and when wet it will take a caravan nearly 3000 feet to stop as the brakes are useless. Good thing the strip is over 5000 feet long.

.... If you've got time to spare go by air...
One thing I've learned as I've been working on my private license is weather should be respected. You become so lost so quickly in an airplane if you fly into a cloud or weather and aren't IFR trained. I'll second the rain on the windshield as well it's not like they can just turn on the windshield wipers and clean it off. It's especially difficult coming in slow for a landing.

I worked out of Bethel for a summer into the fall... pretty much flying every day. The only guarantee there was that the weather was likely to change within the hour. It was pretty rare we didn't fly, regardless of the weather. It also depends where you are going. Bethel has the added problem of the fact that it's a controlled airspace and you will be shut down by minimums dictated by the FAA.

So, the answer is, they will fly if they can. Looking at the current weather cam, I've flown in worse out of Bethel.

It all depends on where you are going, what the whether will be like on the return for the pilot, etc, etc. The air taxi wants to fly you. That's how they make money. However, they will not make a risky decision to fly just to accommodate your schedule. Check out Bethel. There has to be some good stories to take home from there. Lol

Chill out, watch football tomorrow... it's all part of the deal. I spent three days of absolute bluebird weather waiting to get into one of my moose hunting trips. The 25mph winds blowing the wrong way kept us out of the planned strip, even though it was sunny.